The Internet Watch Foundation—which was given special powers by prime minister David Cameron to begin proactively searching for such material in 2014—said on Thursday that it was working hard to track and then take down child sex photos and video.

Only 0.2 percent of global child abuse imagery is hosted in the UK, according to the IWF. The charity provides ISPs with a list of child sexual abuse URLs hosted abroad to help them block the unlawful content.

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"Last year our analysts broke all records for assessing reports. By being allowed to actively search for these hideous images of children, we’ve seen a dramatic increase in the sheer number of illegal images and videos that we’ve been able to remove from the Internet. Thanks to a coordinated approach from government and our Internet industry members, our work is having an incredible impact," said IWF chief Susie Hargreaves.

She added, however, that the charity continues to face a very challenging issue. "What we never forget, is that behind these headlines and every single image we remove from the Internet—there is a real child being abused,” Hargreaves said.

According to the charity's latest figures, 69 percent of victims were assessed to be aged 10 or under. It added that 1,788 child abuse victims were understood to be aged two or under in the content the IWF uncovered and subsequently removed from the Web.

Hargreaves added that the IWF planned to expand its team from 12 to 17 analysts to try to improve efforts to combat the circulation of child abuse images online. She also called on more tech companies to join its battle by becoming members of the charity.